Thursday Poll: Which Streaming Music Service Do You Use?

A paid subscription to Google Play Music is something I generally believe that I can’t live without going forward. I use it every single day. I listen to music streamed from the service while working, while in the car, if I’m cooking, and while I workout. I am constantly streaming music. My playlists change often. New music enters my rotation regularly (that I don’t have to pay extra for). And I often find throwback tunes to my wilder and much younger days that bring a smile to my face today. Streaming music services like Google Play are awesome.

Which brings us to today’s poll. Are you using a streaming music service? If so, which one?

There are countless services to choose from at this point. In fact, I narrowed the list down to what I would consider to be the nine most popular, half of which I myself haven’t even been able to try. From Google Music to iTunes Radio to Beats Music to Spotify, you have so many options that all offer somewhat different experiences. As I mentioned above, Google Play Music works for me, but there may be another service that fits your needs.

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Should have had a multi option. Personally use both Spotify premium and Pandora One for different reasons. Pandora is great for discovery, while Spotify lets me listen on demand and cache locally.

Michael Collins

In my opinion Spotify is the best. I used GPM and it was good, but Spotify just works so much better.
Maybe they’ve improved it since i’ve used it last, but it just was confusing to me.
Just an opinion though.

Mark Worthington

I tried spotify and really liked it….that is until it refused to play another song when I tapped on it. In fact it screwed up everything else from functioning as well. It did this again after restarting my phone. So, to test if it was me or the phone or the app, I switched to google play music. Absolutely no issues whatsoever! Instant switching to another song in the playlist. Pity it doesn’t include biographies of the artist as is the case with spotify.

slookee

If it had the ‘same’ as the ui of spotify then definitely for eva I would use it. I love the useful following artists with spotify

Trey Mitchell

GROOVESHARK!

Rob Fetterhoff

Milk music from Samsung.

Jeremy Gross

iheartradio

RustyTechGuy

I live in what I would refer to as a Technology dead zone. I don’t have fast internet at home and the only carrier that works good at my house is Verizon. Since having to ditch my Unlimited Data (long story) I now have a limited amount of data to use. Just curious how much data streaming audio actually uses?

I like Pandora when working out and in my opinion it has a much better algorithm for suggesting songs based on my thumbs up/thumbs down usage. Not to mention it’s only $36 a year, certainly not a pocket buster for the quality of the service. I also subscribe to Play Music because for the convenience of having virtually every song in the world available at any given time. (I know it doesn’t have everything but it suits my needs). I got in at the $7.99/month pricing which I don’t even notice coming out of my account.

I basically use them in tandem. I find new music on Pandora and “like” it. Then once a week or so I review what songs I like and add them to my various playlists on Play Music.

thatdroidguy

Pandora suits me fine, no more 40 hr limit…… Besides I’m refuse to pay for streamed music when I already pay for data, so what if a commercial comes up every now and then.

baniels

Jriver + gizmo.

StormbladeX69

Amazon PrimeMusic

morgan boyle

seriously?

StormbladeX69

Yep. See the discussion below.

StormbladeX69

Yep. Did you read the discussion in another comment?

yummy

TB of lossles files, no need to stream.

bob the builder

Where is SoundCloud?!

yowhatsup

One reason why I think spotify is better than gpm is because when I tried gpm a while ago, it took up more data to stream than spotify did. Since I’m on a limited databplan, gpm could hurt my data limit. Does anyone know if gpm updated a way to take up less data while streaming?

flosserelli

You could change the streaming quality. Open GPM, tap the headphone icon at top left, tap Settings, scroll to Mobile Streaming.

yowhatsup

I think I did that and GPM still took up more data when I compared it with Spotify.

Vanquishgc

Occasionally I’ll use Slacker if I want to just find new music, but nothing beats Google Play music. It could use a design overhaul, sure, but I’m glad I was an early adopter that’s for sure. Just to prove how awesome it is, I remembered one day that for some reason I didn’t have any Smashing Pumpkins albums on there, which is odd for for me since they’re one of my all time favorite bands. Within 5 minutes I had all of their albums saved. That’s just awesome. And to automatically migrate existing music on your device without doing a thing? It doesn’t get more user friendly than that. They have a user for life right here.

Eder Benavides

I enjoy Spotify! The mixture of Pandora, and songza, combing your own music(since I have rare EP’s ) and with Spotify music, and best of all I only pay half the price! I’m a college student which paying just 5 bucks for the service, is freaking awesome!!

Nasko Hristov

I would use Google Play Music, IF I HAD ONE. (yeah it is not available in a country part of EU since 7 years). However Spotify being the only music streaming service here I find it cool. In fact I am listening to Spotify here while writing. Other thing Spotify charge me 5€ in my country for the premium. So I can’t really complain, but man how bad I want Google Play Music.

I’m actually pretty surprised no one is 100% behind Beats by Dre. I’m a Spotify fan myself but I’m curious about Beats now that Apple owns them.

Josep Reyes

none. i listen to the same songs all the time. plus im not always connected to 4g or wifi so i prefer to buy the song/album and sync it to my computer, inano, phone, and tablet.

monkeybutts

Songza for actual radio. Google for personal collection.

Nick Bohl

I haven’t touched Google play since they put the device limit back in for fear of “wasting” a token. I’m hardly a crack flasher, but I swap phones a lot for work (I work for at&t) so I’d use all 4 of my tokens in half a year. Seriously considering cancelling altogether 🙁

Tom

I use both Google Play Music and Spotify. However Spotify has been getting more play since T-Mobile supports free streaming for them. When Google Play music gets the free streaming it’ll get more use.

Danny

I store everything on my device im putting these 32 gigs to use and not be one of those people who demand 64 gigs and hardly use 5 because they stream music

NBMTX

Soundcloud is the best for EDM (original and especially remixes) and fun social. Does spotify let you know when that specific part of that song shared by that artist you like made someone think “Fukkkkk”? Plus there’s a lot of downloadable content that can be backed up to your own Google Play Music for offline or an I’m Feeling Lucky mix later.

G

Try DI Radio: DI.fm

NBMTX

whoa thanks, I’ll used this as an alternative discovery method. I use to use last.fm (for up and coming rock) up until they started charging… :-/

hogasswild

What about Milk, or do you consider that Slacker?

Chris Friend

Why would you use anything other than Spotify? Best library and if you are a student you get it at $4.99 for life. I’m not even enrolled in a university anymore and haven’t been for months and I still have the student price :).

NBMTX

Soundcloud

jim

Spotify premium because the UI is much less cluttered (for my tastes), but more importantly its library of classical music is superior to GPM, though the latter may have acquitted more licenses since last time I checked.

antinorm

Just Google Play Music for now. I’d love to start using Pandora again, but that won’t happen until/unless they get rid of the arbitration clause in their Terms of Service.

Rhapsody, Pandora, Google music. Mostly Rhapsody from the napster days

Kevin

What Icon pack isn that from? Looks nice.

robertlwalters

Would also like to know

Sam Connell

Sawyer

mcdonsco

Pandora, Google Music and Spotify (for metallica on demand).

albert5x5

I actually just uploaded all my Metallica CDs (plus The Beatles) to my Google Play Music account, so I had no reason to keep Spotify anymore, or any other music service for that matter.

mcdonsco

Not a bad idea…might do that!

I use Pandora a lot in the car as its integrated with my head unit (so I don’t have to control it from the phone)…easier for in car.

albert5x5

It works really well too, because my Metallica catalog also includes the stuff I got from livemetallica.com

jim

I use tunein , pandoria ,milk anything that’s free , wont pay for it

Randy Sharp

Amazon is worth the price just for shipping. Movies are a huge bonus. Now I use the music app and I love it. I don’t know if it is good business for amazon, but I know that I’m not paying an extra $120 per year for the songs it is missing.

DJyoSNOW

TuneIN and or Milk (by slacker)

Jared K

Stream personal music with Google Play Music. And Spotify for “radios” I would use Pandora but their bitrate for even paid subscription is a joke.

DanWazz

Google Play music is my go to, but I use Spotify since it doesn’t use up any of my data when I’m out and the missus and kido want to listen to pop music

I’m using Rdio right now, mainly because it’s only $5 a month since I’m a student. But I find the app to be pretty terrible. It’s laggy and buggy and the buffering is painfully slow sometimes, if it even buffers at all. I don’t necessarily recommend it..

Flyinion

Xbox Music here. Been using it since it was Zune, I even still have an 8GB Zune that I take on all day off-road trips where there’s no signal because the battery lasts forever. Zune/Xbox Music has one of the largest catalogs out there (XBM inherited Zune’s catalog) and I’m still on the grandfathered in plan where I pay $15 and get to permanently keep 10 songs a month (i.e. “buy” 10 songs per month). I was going to dump it and go to Play Music, but MS finally decided to grace non-WP platforms with an app.

Rdio is much better than most of these, Google Play is a close 2nd IMO.

Kelly Marvel

I was originally was content with the free version of Spotify until I found out they offer it for $5 if you have a student email. So now Spotify is the only subscription I use.

Sankyou

Yeah I’m thinking about taking the plunge now that I know about the student discount. Still paying is a tough sell with an automated usenet -> Google Play solution. I do like the shared playlists on spotify.

Dustin Wood

Only use Google Play Music because Spotify don’t have carrier billing with T-Mobile anymore.

I use Spotify Premium ($4.99/mo w/ student discount) and Songa (free). I have Amazon Prime but don’t bother with Prime Music since it’s a mess.

Shane Redman

Where’s the milk?!?! /s

JSo

Milk…thats such a stupid name for a music service. lol

flosserelli

I agree, but perhaps there is a connotation that got lost in the translation.

Shane Redman

But it does a body good!!! *Continues Zumba course*

km75sr

Spotify primarily. It seems to have everything I want to listen to. GPA secondarily bcuz I have my personal music uploaded there. Milk music…to hear new music without actually having to request a certain artist or song. It seems to work well in that regard. I have songza but rarely use it. Judging by some of the comments here I might need to utilize Songza a little more. And yeah I actually pay for three services…..SPOTIFY, GPA, MILK MUSIC. Kinda serious about my music.

TimXer

did Ron really need to vote 15 times….geeez!

Microsoftjunkie

Xbox Music. Biggest selection, free streaming of any song/artist/album, as much as you want on PC, limited to 10hrs after a few months unless subscribed. And is on every platform. This service can’t be beat.

mcdonsco

That should have been check boxes not one selection

droidrazredge

Would Siriusxm satellite radio be considered as a streaming service ? I choose I don’t use a streaming music service but then I thought about it and wasn’t sure if it was but I listen to the 2000’s music channel and some others when I’m in the car.

$7.99 early bird subscription pricing, the storage of my whole iTunes library of 100+GB. Google Play All access no-brainer.

DDD

DI Radio and Rad.io

Jerry Huster

iHeartRadio should be a choice…

Wall Breaker

i used GPM for a long time and loved it but then I went back to spotify for awhile because it has some music GPM didn’t but I am considering switching back because spotify is limited to listen on only one device at a time.

Thomas Wolfe

What icon pack is in that screenshot?

MacNificent

Google tube all access music play FTW!

Alex James Simon

Youtube Music Key is going to make my $7.99 all the more worth it. 😀

MacNificent

I wish I would’ve never let that go…

Alex James Simon

I stopped the subscription for about a week and I still got offered the deal again. I think the offer stands for the next 30 days after you stop.

huskerhog

Although I use different services depending on my mood (Pandora, Spotify, Milk Music, I didn’t see a choice for Samsung’s Milk Music.

Daniel Thomas

Why pay, when Spotify is free?

Jason Bittner

Milk

dannyWHITE

Nice icon…what pack is that from?

Alex James Simon

Been using Google Music All-Access since day 1, love the $7.99 deal. By the way, they still offer you the deal, if you already had it, if you have to stop the subscription for some reason.

Captain_Doug

I don’t usually stream music. When I do, I use 8tracks. Easy to use playlists. Unlimited skips(sort of). Finding new music is easy.

Quint

I am using the All access version of Google play music, only because I have a free 90 day trial. It is nice, but I am not trying to pay a monthly fee for music. I will cancel it in 2 weeks. Then I will just listen to my collection that is on the phone.

Jeremy Martin

I use Plex and stream the movies and music from my home server

turdbogls

I use a combination….I’m not even sure why either. I dont pay for anyth of these
Play music is for my collection.(
Spotify- to listen to certain artists
pandorafor music discovery (still gives me the best suggestions for similar music IMO)
Songza (why no on list Droid Life?) for its concierge mode and no ads.

Tony Byatt

G.P.M…

Til I D.I.E…

blarz

Pay for: Google Play Music
Use Frequently: Songza,
Use Occasionally: Pandora

tspeak

I use several, actually…Google Play and Spotify are my 2 faves — but I also have premium accounts with Pandora, Rdio, Deezer, and Digitally Imported…

John Davids

Google Play Music is the free cloud locker of choice for the discerning pirate-on-the-go of Today.

jak_341

Milk Music, which is really Slacker.

Cael

Songza

irtechneo

Love me some google music. Its so good my wife and I each have our own subscription. The only gripe I have is when my daughter uses my phone or tablet for it I then get miley cyrus and iggy azalea in my Im Feeling Lucky feed- but that is a very minor gripe.

Ian

suuuuuure…daughter, right 😉

irtechneo

Lol hey I did say its a small gripe…cant say I have fast-forwarded every time

JayMars84

Pandora. Smaller library, which becomes obvious the more you listen to it, but it still plays the best suggestions and it lets me mix artists on one station. The only service successful at both.

Craig P

Google Play Music needs a student discount like Spotify

John

I just was introduced to Jango. I’ve been using it for a week now. I’m liking it better than Pandora. Less commercials.

Ryan

Also, I’ve noticed that if you turn the screen on and unlock, then turn it off, it ships the add.

Ryan

Skips*

bigdav1178

I go with good old Internet radio… used to use TuneIn Pro to access it, but I switched to XiiaLive Pro earlier this year and couldn’t be happier.

Guest

I have a question related to this… At work I have virutally 0 signal… which (free) app would I have the most consistant playback with? I’ve tried Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, Iheart & TuneIn. Pandora (while horrible (becuse of data signal)) is the one I use, I was hoping there’s a way to get just constant playback. 5-45 minute pauses are really annoying. Gnex on Verizon.

Sankyou

There’s a version of grooveshark on XDA that supports prebuffering songs. Great way to go but it’s not legitimate.

DanSan

Ever try ditching the phone while at work and using the computer to listen to music through the web? Or is that not an option?

Still the guest…

I wish. It used to be.. then one day “Forbidden site, reported to IT security, yadda yadda yadda”

If you own any of your own music, you could upload it to Google Play Music and download for offline playback on your phone. With the music being uploaded, you could easily change phones down the road without skipping a beat.

That sucks. 🙁
If you don’t have your own music files for uploading, I’m not sure there’s a free (legal) option for you. If you ever do obtain music, I hope you upload it somewhere next time. 🙂

Guest that really needs to reg

Edit: I start at 5am – It seems the later in the day it gets, the worse the signal. If I start up Pandora at 5am and don’t touch the phone (literally) I can make it all day – If I have to do ANYTHING with it, chances go down as the day goes on that i’ll ever hear another song.

Austin

Slacker lets you download (cache) songs with their Plus service ($3.99/mo). It’s the main reason Slacker is my primary music service. You select which stations you want it to download/refresh overnight while connected to WiFi and charging, and they are always available to you. Not only does it save your mobile data plan, it also increases battery life (not streaming data while listening to music), and lets you listen your stations when you don’t have a data connection. I use it on airplanes a lot when I’m traveling for work. To the best of my knowledge, Slacker is the only streaming radio service has the type of licenses that allow local caching of music you don’t already own. You can always choose to live stream any station, too, even it you have it cached,

Oh, here’s an idea: listen to podcasts instead. Those are free and available offline. I highly recommend Pocket Casts as a podcatcher – it’s $3.99 on the Play Store, and has a ton of features, including automatic download and management of podcasts (which would be perfect for your situation).

T4rd

Droid Life doesn’t know about Songza..?

Cael

inorite. They have XBox Music up there for christ’s sake…

gokh

And Deezer..

someone

Droid Life doesn’t know anything about Sony Music Unlimited as well! Even though they have more songs / content than Spotify & much much better audio quality than the competition (aac 320kbps vs mp3, ogg etc)!

So Droid Life, when considering above, where is & why Sony Music Unlimited is not listed there??

Daniel Garcia

Grooveshark here. Helps that TMO doesn’t count it to my data usage but I have been using Grooveshark for years! Love the rare finds and live content.

Craig P

I like Rdio and Google Play Music the best, both for different reasons. Rdio is better at music discovery, while Google is better with UI and personal libraries. And as a student, Rdio and Spotify are the only ones that give me a 50% off discount.

Sankyou

The real answer for many DL users: We don’t pay for a service and we’re annoyed TMO didn’t include Rhapsody in grandfathered unlimited plans…

Unless I can download whole albums for free with a streaming service then I may reconsider

James

Google play music here. I hear good things about Spotify but the thing is, I have never, not once, not found a song I wanted. Plus I love using music dot Google dot com. And I love the way downloading music works. All around its just pleasant for me

mjmedstarved

Weird; what type of music do you listen to?

I find everything from Oldies, to new electronic, to reggae, to country on it..

James

My comment was confusing. I am saying I DO find my music.

Jason Casas

yeah….I know when it came to the stuff im into I could find the most recent and or the most recent two albums by a specific band but not the entire discography… that was my breaking point…

As of right now none. I’m trying to find a good reason to use one, all the songs I like I have stored locally so I have no need for a streaming service right now.

Dominick White

Same here

Princesation

Google Play Music. $7.99 a month. Worth every penny

adam

I had that then switched to Spotify for 4.99, much better.

Wall Breaker

4.99? how? i pay $8.99

Dave

Its 4.99 if you’re a student.

Justin W

How is Spotify better? It’s only a $3 difference, but if it’s significantly better it might be worth it to make the jump.

Vermin_Cain

I got Spotify when they became available in the US. I tried Google Play music, but it was always lagging, songs buffering and a whole lot of other issues. To me, Spotify is better.

Jason Downing

Buffering is my biggest complaint about Google Play Music AND Youtube.

Vanquishgc

Hmm, maybe I just always have good signal, but not once have I had a buffering issue with Google music. Come to think of it, that rarely happens with YouTube anymore either. What carrier are you on might I ask?

Jason Downing

Verizon

dejackamo

this! and the fact ive made all my playlists and do not want to do them all over again.

nosedive94

How do you get that deal???

adam

You don’t have to be a student to get a student deal

David Stevens

Stream and Verizon don’t go well together…#throttled

LionStone

I stream ALL my music on VZW, not throttled…

Sankyou

Which tower are you on?

LionStone

Hah… Even in the mountains on 2G I can stream Pandora

Sankyou

I was referring to their new policy – but yeah Big Red is legit when it comes to coverage. Just wish they weren’t a bunch of $%$#^#%^ with their policies.

LionStone

Yea, I’m not worried about their new policy, I’m contract free with UD. The day I can’t stream or find my data services unusable, I’ll just walk over to Tmo, I’ve already tested their network and it’s legit.

I did this forever, all the way up until 2 weeks ago. (my best was using close to 40GB in a 4-day weekend. Of course this wasn’t all from streaming only music)

Sold my unlimited line on Ebay for close to $500 bucks, and an now a T-mobile user.

DanSan

How did that process go for you? Any hiccups along the way? Verizon easy to deal with? You were able to keep your numbers right? I have my mom and brother on my family plan and both him and I have unlimited data. I’d have to convince him to switch but I know my mom wouldnt care, she uses a dumbphone.

mjmedstarved

For ME, moving to T-mobile was a piece of cake.

For the buyer of my line.. it was a friggin’ headache; long story short I was told “Yes.”, I could sell the line… sold it, then they tried to pull a fast one on the new owner. 20 days later, it was all solved and set straight.

I did have to email the regional corp pres. from Verizon. 😀

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

DanSan

Damn that stinks, I mean as long as you got paid and switched to T-Mobile without hassle then its all good. What problems did the buyer have? I would hate to do this, actually sell the plan and get my money. Then when I go to do the transfer Verizon completely drops the ball and I somehow end up not being able to transfer it or I do and lose my numbers.

mjmedstarved

Lose your #s??? What year are we in; back them up, dude!!!!!!

Basically when I took my number to T-mo, they canceled the line.. and they gave me flack when trying to get that all straightened out (re-activated, unlimited added, then transferred).. but it all got worked out. Plus, they buyer was very patient, and I reminded them that PayPal has the money. 🙂

Jared K

Thank you. i have NEVER lost my numbers. Even on my dumbphone i was able to export them as an cvs file and import them into my gmail. I never made a fb event because that would be idiotic.

I used Play Music 99% of the time, until things got a bit too buggy and I began using Spotify more often, with a little Pandora thrown in, too.

Disqus_n00b

SiriusXM!

Kellen, how do you stream on GoPhone’s data caps? Or have you moved to T-Mo?

sky

DI.fm all day long! Nothing comes even remotely close to DI Radio.

Mike Credelle

I use google play music and songza.

Finire

If Verizon would make streaming music not count towards data, following in T-Mobile’s footsteps, I really don’t think I’d care much about giving up my unlimited. As it is now though, I user around 4 to 5 gigs a month just in music streaming.

Suicide_Note

I’m at anywhere from 10-15 GBs per month, generally. Luckily I have TMo’s unlimited/no throttling plan, otherwise I’d be in deep doo doo.

DanSan

None.

Ryan

Which one do I pay for? Google Music. Which one do I use? A lot of different services; around 12.

alex

How is Songza not an option? Considering Google bought it, there are no ads, and it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever.

lgreg64

Agree this is my go to now.

Open1Your1Eyes0

I absolutely love Google Play Music and would not use anything else, but good god is it overdue for a UI makeover. Come on Material Design! 🙂

Open1Your1Eyes0

To refresh everyone’s memory. 😉

DanSan

they took the phrase “flat” literally.

I like it.

JSo

Man, I can’t wait

Wall Breaker

i think there is a lot that Google left out of the dev preview thus the reason ti was called a “preview” and not a beta. Look at the notifications bar the wifi, data, battery and clock are not the same as the ones int he dev preview thats just one small example of course.

I love Google Play Music, I just wish the radio stations actually played relevant music to what I listen to. They seem to only match songs by the artist that you started the radio from.

Brandon

Same here, I use it a lot less now though since I take the subway to work and have no service the whole way there.

morgan boyle

Do we all use it because we locked in at the discount rate???

morgan boyle

Also, i really wish Google Music had a more robust playlist sharing system. that would really be nice.

Thomas

Samsung’s Milk Music

jnt

Was very impressed with this when I used it… surprisingly good and easy to use.

DanSan

That’s because there is no TouchWiz.

I kid. I kid.

or do I.

jnt

I still like Pandora the best, b/c when I stream I’m wanting random. When I don’t want random, I want to listen to exactly what I want to listen to in my library. Unless I’m missing something from the other services…

Jason Casas

personally ….it seems spotify has the larger library over good play music…at least when it comes to my taste… #spotify

mjmedstarved

I’m sure Google will get there, but this makes me feel a little better for not having left Spotify just yet. 🙂

Jason Casas

yeah I assume so as well …I joined up with GPM way back at launch and expected the same just never saw much movement towards doing so … :/ I just decided to drop back and go with spotify and try again later in hopes of seeing some change

BigTimmay

Why’d you hash tag in a Disqus comment?

Jason Casas

bad habbit

Garrett Sechelski

Other – Amazon Prime Music.

I pay for Amazon Prime anyways, might as well use their music service too. If it wasn’t included I’d go with Google Play.

clobberedchina

Same.

DanSan

I need to try this out. The only Prime feature I actually care about is the 2 day shipping so I never explored the other cool things that come along with it.

Check out Prime Video too. They’ve got some Prime originals (similar to House of Cards or Orange is the New Black for Netflix) that they’ve been funding and are really good – (example: Betas). Worth a look.

StormbladeX69

Not to mention Prime Streaming Video. Amazon Prime is a VERY good value. IMHO.

Tim C

I’ve found their selection lacking slightly, but as you mentioned, it’s a free addition to my existing Prime account. For that alone, I gave it a shot. Once they compete with Google and Spotify for the few artists I want, I’d drop my other subs.

Arian

I really don’t understand why everyone here uses Google Play Music over Spotify. More artists have deals with Spotify and I can’t even find the latest in EDM in Google Play. Like, look at Armin van Buuren’s Spotify playlists and plethora of compilations on Spotify. Wtf guys

Suicide_Note

Because some people have their needs met by Play Music itself. Some people, like myself, use multiple services to make up for the gaps that each service has. No one solution works for everyone.

Kyle Miller

Because people like what they like.

DanSan

I really don’t understand why people drive red cars over black ones. More people buy black cars and they look cooler. Plus red cars just stand out which means you get pulled over. Wtf guys.

Does this make that music available to stream / sync from anywhere (desktop, phone, etc.)? Are there any limitations on how many songs you can do this with? Is there any chance that some music that was obtained in a not-so-standard fashion might be removed or cause account suspension?

Justin W

|obtained in a not-so-standard fashion

I don’t believe they have a way of telling that if you have the metadata cleaned up. Tbh, I don’t think they’d really care.

FRGuzman

As long as I know they don’t really care about that. Since Spotify’s library is so massive anyway you end up using this for a couple of songs…

NBMTX

but if my own taste involves tracks that aren’t on a major label (or label at all), I can use soundcloud and GPM to backup my music and/or have it available offline (soundcloud caches music like GPM so both work, but doesn’t have the nifty “on device” filter) for free

I did some research and it turns out you don’t really “upload” your music to anything. Spotify will take your local files and sync them to your device (via cable?). The files do not get uploaded to Spotify’s servers or anything like that. With Google Play Music, however, I can actually upload my music to my account, and access it (by streaming or downloading) on any device.

Arian

They do seem to get uploaded to spotify’s servers because I have shared playlists and tracks to my friends and they can listen to my local files even without having them on their computer

Are you certain that the music you’re sharing wasn’t already available on Spotify? It sounds like they match tracks to their catalog whenever possible.

Duane Westerhaus

I’m not knocking music streaming services here (my kids use them), but for me it’s a waste of money. I just copy my 1800+ music files (Thank you Napster!) over from the desktop to any new smartphone I get and call it good. Guess I’m getting old because I’ve not been interested in most of the music put out over the past several years, so no need to pay for a service when I already have what I like!

I know that, the person I was replying to said he uses GPM instead of Spotify because of this feature.

Ryan Joyce

Just want to point out that uploading your own music to Google Play, and streaming it to any device, is free. You don’t need to pay for GP to do that. So I do that for my own library, and pay for Spotify for its larger selection and better curation IMO.

I would also rather have all my music within one app. Splitting my uploaded music and my streaming library into two apps is not ideal.

mjmedstarved

Couldn’t agree more, Arian!

cizzlen

GPM’s library is very limited compared to Spotify which has all the music I could ever ask for. And I can sync all my local songs to any playlist.

JPB

I can’t say I’ve ever looked for a song I didn’t find on Google, but then I’m an older listener. Everybody’s taste is different. Google Music isn’t perfect though, the UI definitely needs an upgrade and it badly needs a way to stop playing on one device and continue on another. But, for me, $7.99 is a good price, I’m happy with it enough not to fix what isn’t broken.

cizzlen

$7.99 is hard to look away from no doubt. But with Spotify each update adds useful new features including a beautiful new redesign not too long ago. Plus I have all my playlists set up to my liking so I don’t see myself switching anytime soon.

Vanquishgc

I think I’ve only run into maybe 3 occasions where GPM didn’t have what I was looking for. Wasn’t a big deal for me personally. That’s why I have video to mp3 converter on my phone that I use for YouTube. Mostly remixes and such. I figure there’s a workaround for almost everything.

Shaun

Because this is a Google fanboy site. If GPM wasn’t released by Google but some other random firm it wouldn’t be half as popular because it is a very average app.

NBMTX

I think it’s a bit better than average since I can trigger stuff from my own uploaded music (not counting against my cloud storage) using voice commands (play a song, play an artist, just play music aka I’m feeling lucky, from my lockscreen or wherever), while [chrome]casting, or streaming from my mobile, or playing from my desktop. It syncs my music library across all my devices and its yet another thing I don’t have to manage or transfer for any device I might own in the future.
I am definitely a Google Fanboy but I don’t use Play Music because I’m a fanboy. I use it because it’s the best way to access MY music without getting a new account, or a new app, or having all my listening deviate to common mixes accommodating major music labels etc… and
it’s free*.
(*kind of)

NBMTX

I mostly listen to EDM, and when I’m song hunting I listen to Soundcloud… its waay better in my opinion because not only do you get alllll sorts of unique remixes, but you also get to hear reshared music by the artists themselves, and that usually leads to all sorts of great tangents. Plus it’s free, it looks great, has a great social layer, and there’s a lot of free DLable content on Soundcloud which can then be backed up to your Google account for free.

Arian

I love SoundCloud but I don’t like how it doesn’t have an offline feature. But yeah all the unique remixes are what keep me alive. I find myself lost in recommended tracks for hours. But not EVERYTHING on there is a free download, so I turn to Spotify

NBMTX

it kind of has an offline feature… it caches all the most recent tracks like GPM, up to a user set data limit… but it doesn’t have the nifty “on device” toggle like GPM… but the pace and vastness of the EDM world are what keep me from being interested in subscription services like Spotify or All Access.

Tillmorn

Agreed. Spotify’s selection far outweighs Google Play Music’s. With that said, whenever I buy a digital copy of an album, I always check Google Play first, as their albums download at 320kbps quality. Something that makes a huge difference in sound quality when you use any type of mid to high-end equipment.

Personally, I’m against Google Play Music for two reasons: One, I have a 64GB microSD for the current forty or so albums in my rotation. Given that I have over 400GB (all at 320kbps so it’s not THAT many albums >_>) of music on various external drives, I don’t want to go through the painfully slow process of uploading everything to Play. More importantly, when they first launched their subscription service, they were a complete data and resource hog that burned through battery in the blink of an eye on mobile devices. Perhaps that has changed, but I am not moving back over from Spotify just to find out.

Arian

Spotify streams and downloads music offline in 320kbps too!

Sara Frey

This is why I unsubscribed from Google Play. So many songs and artists I like weren’t there at all. That’s true for many, many genres, not just EDM. Until the library is greatly expanded I won’t be back anytime soon.

Emilio S.

How does Google Play Music compare to Spotify? Spotify is my go-to and I pay the premium, but if Google Play is just as good and offers the similarity of streaming music and making playlists avaiable offline (for when you’re in rural areas with poor connection), then I may give it a shot.

For me, being able to upload my own music alongside what’s offered for streaming makes a big difference. On the other hand, Spotify has a bigger library from what I hear, a much better interface for sharing playlists, and it plugs in to more third-party things.

jwildman16

Songza FTW

Robzw

Songza > Pandora anyday

Tony T.

I tried Songza a long time ago. I was underwhelmed. Really, I find all recommendation services (Songza, Pandora, GPM, etc) have terrible predictive recommendation algorithms, for me at least. I know a lot of people who love them and find new music through stuff like Pandora and Songza. When I use it, though, I’ll type in an artist or whatever and it’ll just populate crappy uber mainstream bands. Even when I thumbsdown them, these services don’t seem to learn much…

jwildman16

Songza’s playlists are curated; they are not algorithm-based (for the most part). Don’t like uber mainstream? Try something like Obsessively New or Before It Breaks: Summer 2014.

Tony T.

Just gave it a try again. I used my control band that I typically test these types of services with, and it did better than Pandora in general, but still not great. For a free service, it’s acceptable, but I would not pay for an app or a subscription service, personally.